Louise at The F Word does a great job of breaking down the methodological weaknesses in the study.
The actual article is available here and actually doesn't seem to say all that much. Fetal sex is only predicted by maternal diet prior to conception and the only food that significantly correlates with producing a baby of a particular sex is breakfast cereal (with males).
So, breakfast cereal for boys, starve yourself for girls. One of the authors of the study, "Mathews says that her findings provide hints of a cheap, 'natural' way to select the sex of a child". Designer babies are, to risk placing an overly normative judgment, creepy, and certainly situated in a scientific-ethical gray area. But the problem is moreover emphasis.
The fount of the study is a minor decrease in male babies born in industrialized nations. Very minor. One tenth of one percent minor. And of course the answer is mothers because the answer is always mothers. Inhospitable maternal environment. Never mind that anyone who's made it through marginally informative sex ed (though I suppose that might be a smaller proportion than we'd like) knows that sperm are far more determinative of fetal sex than cereal.
In other news:
1 comment:
Poor baby: thinks she can change her sex just by eating cereal. Thanks a lot, pop science.
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